The Rhubarb Meets the Strawberries
Jim reflects for the first time on a true love of
his: old fashioned cooking.
I made Strawberry/Rhubarb Conserve today. I got
the idea from a wonderful book by Dee Dee Stovel, Picnic.
I just adapted the recipe by substituting half rhubarb/half strawberry for the
full rhubarb amount. It couldn't have been easier. Last night I chopped up the
rhubarb, strawberries, an orange and a lemon and put them in a stainless steel
pot along with enough sugar and a handful of raisins and nuts. I got up early
this morning and cooked this mixture for about 20 minutes. I also loaded my
canning pot with empty glass jars and lids and sterilized them. When the mixture
was cooked enough, I put it in the glass jars and put the caps and lids on, snug
but not tight, and gave them a water bath for 20 minutes. They are cooling
now.Every year I can and preserve a
few things, and it is just part of my general orientation to our daily bread of
the physical variety. Preserving and cooking food is an art that I enjoy. Last
year I made French Mustard
Pickles, Black Walnut/Plum
Conserve, and Tomato/Apple Marmalade. I took the first two recipes
from the pages of Favorite Recipes of America: Vegetables, 1970. It was
published by Favorite Recipes Press and is out of print, so far as I know,
although I found one of the volumes, the dessert one, used on
Amazon.But why am I, a guy, doing
this?It goes back to my family when I
was growing up. We all cooked, although my dad never ventured into the canning
arena, except to provide mom with the bushels of tomatoes and pecks of green
beans. But I was fortunate to live the first eleven years of my life with Eva
Noe, my great grandmother, the daughter of german immigrants, Abraham
and Margaretha Mueller Fickeisen. She lived half of her life on farms on
Pleasant Ridge and Washington Bottom in the Mid-Ohio Valley. My mom left school
in the depression to help her mother, Clara, and her grandmother, Eva, survive.
To these people and their forebearers, canning and preserving food was a way of
life. And it wasn't just because it was necessary, and it was necessary. It was
part of the art of their life. I am no
reactionary person who wants to return to past ways. I love modern life and
technology and revel in the advances of the human race. But that old way of life
that those people had was both painful and wonderful. Cooking and canning was
part of the art of their living. They knew exactly what they were eating, what
was in it, where it came from, and how it was going to taste. And taste it did!
My great grandmother canned for other people to make a little income or create a
positive barter situation for her family. No one could make pies like my
grandmother, Clara. Mom used to say that it was just a knack. And my mother,
well, almost every day she made a "good" breakfast, packed us or bought us a
lunch, and fixed a full dinner for the family, all the while doing all the
cleaning and house maintenance and working in our grocery store. She also kept
the books for many years.Those years
in the kitchen while mom was canning and grandmother was baking, those were fun
times. The neighbors dropped in to gossip and play cards. In a way, our whole
life was centered around food, with the grocery store and the cooking and
canning. We did watch TV and go to the drive-in theatre, but our idea of
relaxing was sitting out on the front porch watching life go on down Greene
Street. No air conditioner cooled our house in the summer.
It's almost laughable now how far
people will go to avoid cooking. I can tell you that most of my friends wouldn't
be caught dead cooking a meal for me. Always we eat out. In fact, I can scarcely
get people to do anything unless it's planned around a meal out. It's really not
too hard to put a decent, attractive affordable lunch on the table for four
people. I can make any three out of the four—soup, sandwiches, fruit,
salad—in ten minutes. I do it every day for Stephen and me. I can make
breakfast muffins and sausage in 25 minutes, less if I plan ahead. And, of
course, because I do want to see some of my friends, I will go out and spend the
$35-$60 that it takes for two to eat out. But, being retired, that may come to
an end sometime in the future. Well, I
don't really want to turn this into a rant, so, turning back, I'm just saying
that cooking is one of my big connections to a lovely family lifestyle, a
connection to my beloved past, a way that I bring artistry into everyday things,
a way that I give to other people. If you choose to spend your time differently,
of course, that's fine. But old-fashioned cooking is not such a bad idea, and
neither was old-fashioned living. I'm glad I can bring it into the present from
time to time.
Posted: Thu - June 15, 2006 at 08:57 AM Of Course It's Boring, Idiot Give Us this Day Previous Next Feedback |
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Published On: Mar 18, 2009 10:51 AM
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